Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon on Thursday made an impassioned appeal to Jamaicans to “call out” instances of children being sexually abused while emphasising the need for proper policies to protect them.

At the same time, Morris Dixon said she is particularly keen on working to improve Jamaica’s adoption framework and laws to encourage people to foster and increase the availability of programmes for special needs children.

Addressing the Child Protection and Family Services Agency’s (CPFSA) 2025 Educational Achievement Awards Ceremony to recognise outstanding achievement of youngsters in State care, Morris Dixon said the responsibility for the protection of children did not rest on any one entity.

“It rests with every single person in this country. If you see something that’s not right with a child, we can’t keep quiet. We have to report it, and too often it’s not reported, and one of the things that pains me, having had conversation with some first form students, they told me that the majority of girls in their class had already been raped and… these things, we slide them under the rug,” the education minister told those gathered at the function at Terra Nova All-Suite Hotel in St Andrew.

Noting that the topic is one people find hard to broach, the education minister said, “We know, through the National Family Planning Board, there are studies [that show] that for many young people, their first interaction of a sexual nature was forced, so I’m not here to say pretty things. I’m here to encourage, but I’m also saying that we have some problems that we don’t like to confront, and we have to confront them because we have to protect our children”.

She invited children in State care to partner with her to distil the issues they face, saying this will help policy makers to “understand what the issues are and how we can fix things and how we can give voice to things”.

“Because, when we give voice to it, it does not feel as if you kind of try to destigmatise it. I have a friend who told me …every single girl in my family has been sexually abused by a family member and she’s going through that pain. There are many Jamaicans going through that pain, many children going through that pain, and it’s not a Jamaica that we can be okay with,” the education minister stated.

“I don’t get that opportunity too often to say these things, and so I’m taking the opportunity today to say that we’re not doing enough to protect our children, and we all know it’s happening, but we are all being polite about it, and politeness isn’t going to take us forward… it’s not going to protect our children. We have to call it out,” she added.

The 2023 Violence Against Children and Youth survey revealed that sexual violence in childhood is common and that girls are more vulnerable. It found that almost one in four females, or 23.7 per cent, and more than one in 10 males or 11.7 per cent experienced sexual violence during childhood.

Turning to Jamaica’s adoption framework and laws which have long been a sore point, Morris Dixon said “We keep talking about it, we’ve not gotten there, and we have to work on our adoption law. The process has to become much simpler, much, much simpler, and it needs to be quicker. And so that’s very important in terms of policy focus”.

Where foster care is concerned, the education minister, who fosters a child, said she was pushing the programme out of her belief that “The best place for a child is in a home with family”.

She said while the job being done in State-run homes was not to be discounted, “there are many other Jamaicans who we need to encourage to come and help our children in whatever way and give them a home that they can come home to and they can feel good”.

Said Morris Dixon: “I know as minister, I have a responsibility to make sure that we have a foster care system that encourages Jamaicans to foster. Look at me. I do it. It’s not easy… there are times when it is hard, but it’s worth it, because it’s for the child. I want to see more Jamaicans involved in that.”

Addressing the lack of adequate programmes for children with special needs, Morris Dixon said, “It’s an area we have to focus on. There are so many children with special needs. We don’t have enough programmes. We are expanding our programmes in the ministry, and we have to do more of that. But what happens when our special needs children become adults? What happens to so many of our special needs children who, after 21, or 18, they don’t have their school?”

“So we have to put in place programmes for these children where they can contribute so much more. We are losing out on them, and I know, I have a special needs child at home, and she’s very sweet… and I think about what’s going to happen to her… we have to have programmes for them,” she insisted.

A safeguarding framework for such programmes and mechanisms through which businesses can become involved, she said, would be necessary.

“There’s a whole heap of other things I want to do, but I just wanted to give you some of that policy flavour, because, you know, I’m with friends who understand these needs,” the education minister told attendees.

She congratulated the 64 awardees who were among 132 students in State care who sat the secondary educational examinations in 2025.

“I know that throughout life, there are going to be people who will measure you, or want to try to measure you by things that really don’t matter. They may want to define you by your background, where you come from, what you have, how you talk, mistakes you may have made in the past. There will be people out there who may want to diminish you, but you must never let them,” she told the awardees.

“There is no hanging down of your head, because you know that you are special, and God has ordained great things to happen in your life. There are going to be difficulties, there are going to be difficult times… but I tell you that God will always be there on the good days and the bad days, He’s going to be there. And He has said that you are special. And today, when you are here, when you come up here and you get your award, I want you to remember that that is God working in your life,” the education minister told the wards.

Annually, the CPFSA spends upwards of $80 million to offset the educational expenses for children enrolled at the early childhood to tertiary levels. The annual awards programme is aimed at recognising the outstanding achievement of youngsters in State care across the agency’s programmes, residential child care facilities, foster care, family reintegration, and supervision orders.